Lexicon/Leksikon

On Saturday the 30th of November 2013 the Lexicon/Leksikon exhibition opened, which was about accents and local languages. How do we make use of language in specific communities, how do we define ourselves via language, and how do we distinct ourselves form others via language? What role does language play in subcultures and how much value can we attach to accents? Those were the kind of questions we imposed with this project, which lasted till the 11th of January 2014.

Also part of the project was a lecture by Onno Crasborn, about accents in Dutch sign language, and a guided tour for deaf people by deaf artist Jascha Blume. Both took place on the 8th of December 2013. About 30 people attended the lecture and tour.

Apart from that dr. Bettina Beinhoff gave a lecture about “the influence of attitudes on second language acquisition processes” and “the acceptability of accents in social contexts’ on Saturday the 21st of December 2013.

On the last day of the project (11th of January 2014) there was a lecture programme, organized in collaboration with Meertens Instituut, Genootschap Onze Taal and Fryske Akademie. Lecturers: Mathilde Jansen, Lotte Thissen, Anne Dykstra and Marc van Oostendorp. Wouter van Wingerden was present to answer urgent ‘language’ questions in the so called ‘Hospitaal’.
Presentation: Rutger Middendorp.

Last but not least, there was organized an educational programme by artist Yvonne Blaauw, about street language. How do you come up with a street language? When and how do words from the street make it to the offcial Dutch dictionary?
Does street language evolve gradually? Together with children from different school in Leeuwarden, Blaauw created a street language dictionary. The new words originated from the streets, and thus were presented on the streets as well, which seemed to be fitting.
Small clips of the process could be seen in the exhibition as well.

In the publication one could find an article by Bettina Beinhoff – about English as second language. Also in the publication: an article by Onno Crasborn, about accents in sign language, an article by Vivien Waszink – about the language of Dutch hip hop – and an article by art critic Machteld Leij, about the language spoken by the art world. The graphic design of the publication was done by was Marcel Westra.

PRESS

I was interviewed by local radio stations Radio Mercurius and Omrop Fryslan. VHDG’s projectcoordinator Judith Spijksma was interviewed by Omrop Fryslan as well (about the day with lectures). There was a photo report on Trendbeheer. I was interviewed by art magazine Metroplis M Metropolis M.
Art Magazine Tubelight wrote an intersting article about the exhibition, as did Friesch Dagblad. And four articles about the project were written by Leeuwarder Courant.